by Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY

by Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY

If you paid attention to the gossip blogs, you might conclude Accidental Racist, the collaboration between country singer Brad Paisley and rapper LL Cool J that appears on Paisley's new album Wheelhouse, is an unmitigated failure.

Sites from Salon.com to Grantland have attacked the song for its depiction of a well-intended, if occasionally clumsy, dialogue between two men from different backgrounds trying to understand why the other believes the things they do. Jezebel characterizes it as "a mournful ballad about how hard it is to be a white man." Several called it the newest "worst song ever."

On Twitter, even the occasional musician got into the act.

While bloggers, reporters and comedians have pronounced their judgment, the reaction hasn't been universally negative.

When Jacksonville radio station WQIK-FM played a portion of the song Tuesday morning, listeners called to insist the morning-show team play the entire track, which runs nearly six minutes.

"With our audience, the majority of the reaction was really good," says WQIK morning show co-host Toni Foxx. "People feel it's a really good song. They seem to get the message." Responses to the song on the WQIK Facebook page were almost entirely positive as well.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the track ranked No. 26 on iTunes' country download chart.

Paisley fans who responded on Twitter seemed much more taken with the song than the bloggers.

Paisley got a high-profile defender in Michael Reagan, son of President Ronald Reagan, who tweeted the following message to the singer.

Alan Scherstuhl in the Village Voice's Sound of the City column offers one of the more reasoned takes on the song, noting that while country music is "in the reassurance business," Paisley often challenges its assumptions and not from the right side of the political spectrum, either. Scherstuhl eventually writes, "It's dispiriting that so many smart progressives online have failed to do for Paisley what Paisley is asking his audience to do to Cool J."

Writer David Wild, who facilitated Paisley's introduction to LL Cool J and was in the car when Paisley first played Accidental Racist for the rapper, says: "Social media helped put them together, but there is a nasty side to social media. Sometimes, when there's something meaningful, it's exactly the wrong place for it to be showcased.

"Brad likes to communicate with everyone; it's why he's such a great artist. He's comfortable at the Grand Ole Opry and at South Park and insists, I think, on the right to be so. And he's really great in both places."

While some of the criticism about the song has focused on LL Cool J's lines, particularly rhyming "do-rag" with "red flag" and saying, "RIP, Robert E. Lee," Paisley says, "It's a really different song if you leave out the last part. Then it's a guy just thinking, as opposed to talking to someone."

That dialogue seems to be a key element of what Paisley and LL Cool J were trying to accomplish with the song. And they also seemed to expect some controversy.

"I knew that it would stir the pot up a little bit," LL Cool says. "But I thought it was truthful and authentic and real."

As for Paisley, he appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Tuesday and said: "Make your own mind up. That's fine - you can throw things at me, I'm all right."

What does LL Cool J hope his audience takes away from the song? "I hope they hear his side, and they hear my side," he says. "Ultimately, all I want people to do is think for themselves. Listen to it, and let your thoughts take you where they take you. It's really about art and about getting people to talk and feel each other. It made me think differently about a white man from the South. That's an elephant in the room, something I never even thought about."

On Tuesday morning, Paisley offered the following series of tweets to his fans: